These are pictures of a few selections in our collection.  The Scolecite, Stilbite-Ca and Calcite (about 12 inches long) was from Sami Makki, whose grandfather started the rudiments of Matrix India in the 50’s.  Sami’s father Muhammad and he now run the operation that began exporting minerals in the 70’s.  Sami personally collects much of the material and he personally collected this and other specimens we have. The specimen comes from the basalt plains in Maharashtra, India. 

Sami was called by a construction crew about a potential pocket of minerals found during the digging of a well.  (Sami and his team have networked with construction companies all over India and often get calls in addition to the mines they operate.)  The well wall started gushing water and they quit for the day.  Next day they realized they hit a pocket of water and called Matrix India to check it out before continuing to the actual water table.  Sami said these Scolecite formations take millions of years of still water to form in.  They then bring their own team in to remove the specimen material and reimburse the construction company.

I recently saw an article about research being done on these kinds of trapped water for bacteria that have been isolated for millions of years! The Vandinite is almost always found in oxidation zones around lead deposits (per Mindat.org).  These come from Morocco and exhibit brown and reddish-brown, two of the many colors this mineral can have.